r86 The Scottish Nat iir alls f. 



was found on the road by which the said gold -specimens had 

 been trundled up a hill. 



6. Though found in 1872, the discovery of this unique speci- 

 men — and which the finder and his friends must have known 

 was unique — was not made public till August 1873. 



7. The impression of the possessor of the Australian gold- 

 specimens and of his friends — so far as I understood their own 

 oral statements to myself in July 1877 — was, and probably is still, 

 that the Gemmell Quartzite was simply one of the Laidlaw Collec- 

 tion of Australian gold-quartzes, which had been lost (from the 

 hand-barrow) in the process of flitting. 



8. This also is the impression, I believe, of Dr Porteous,^ who 

 has had occasion, in lecturing on " Gold-finding in the Lowthers," 

 to use some of these Australian gold-specimens in illustration, 

 and who has recently compared with them the Gemmell Quartzite 

 as now exhibited in the Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh. 



9. And the same gentleman, writing in the ' Scotsman ' in 

 January 1878, assures us that it is the ''prevailing opinion" of 

 the miners and other residents of the Wanlockhead district that 

 the Gemmell Quartzite is oi foreign — not of native — origin. 



I have purposely omitted from the foregoing statement all 

 detail — all quotations or references of an illustrative or corro- 

 borative kind. But these can readily be supplied should the 

 Society consider the matter of sufficient interest to justify a future 

 and more detailed paper or report. 



The object of the foregoing paper was to give rise to a discussion 

 of the subject to which it refers on the part of the legale as well 

 as of the scientific, Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 believing, as I do, that the question is one very much of common- 

 sense evidence. Discussion duly occurred, as reported in the 

 Edinburgh newspapers of March 5, 1878. But it was confined 

 to scientific men, or to those who considered themselves qualified 

 to decide such a matter off-hand, and on the most slender, and, 

 I may add, sometimes absurd, grounds. The result of the discus- 

 sion was disappointing, in so far as no new facts were ' elicited, 

 and no new arguments of any weight brought forward. The 

 character of the discussion may be sufficiently illustrated by the 

 observations of Mr Maconochie Welwood of Meadowbank. 

 According to one account, he " said it was now fifty years since 



^ Vide Dr Poileous's * Treasure- House,' p. 55. 



